In general, a magazine is a receptacle that is loaded with a number of cartridges, such as ball cartridges or blank cartridges. A loaded magazine may be inserted into a rifle or may be carried by a user.
In the related art, a box-type magazine in which cartridges are loaded in a straight line and a drum-type magazine in which cartridges are loaded in a cylindrical drum in a spiral line are well-known.
An example of related art drum-type magazines may be referred to Korean Patent Publication No. 10-1988-0700238 (10-1991-0003038) entitled ‘Drum Magazine’.
The drum magazine disclosed in the publication is problematic in that, to load the magazine with a number of cartridges, a user should sequentially insert the cartridges into a cylindrical drum of the magazine one by one with a strong force, so the user feels inconvenience when loading the magazine. Further, the loaded cartridges may become jammed in the cylindrical drum of the magazine, so the cartridge loading efficiency of the magazine may be reduced.
Another problem of the drum magazine disclosed in the publication resides in that, when the magazine is repeatedly used over a lengthy period of time, the elasticity of a tension member of the magazine that functions to support loaded cartridges may be reduced. When the elasticity of the tension member is reduced, the tension member may fail to efficiently support cartridges in the magazine and may fail to precisely feed the cartridges into a cartridge chamber of a rifle, thereby causing a failure in firing.